There was an extreme amount of anger and hate in the city of Dallas in 1963 but it was marshalled by a small minority of people Bill Minutaglio The social commentary that seemed to be redolent and pervasive back then sure seems to be in existence today.

“People say you could change the title of that book to ‘United States 2023’ because of a lot of the polarisation and anger and vituperative nature of the political discourse. A protest flyer circulating Dallas in 1963 had photos of Kennedy with the headline: “Wanted for treason.”īill Minutaglio, a journalist and co-author of Dallas 1963, which examines the extremist elements of the time, also sees modern parallels. The rightwing firebrand Edwin Walker, a former army general who in 1962 was charged (but not convicted) with “insurrection and seditious conspiracy”, moved his base of operations to the city. Photograph: Bryan Smith/Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock ”Īn X marks the spot on Elm Street where President John F Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald. It was the Tea Party and Maga before the Tea Party and Maga. The John Birchers were the worst of it but still there was a lot of folks that were that way. Mike Rawlings, a Democrat who was mayor of Dallas from 2011 to 2019, said: “There was definitely a very conservative bent. Extremist groups such as the John Birch Society and the Minutemen were small but vociferous. In Dallas, the buckle on the Bible belt, the hostility was a toxic mix of racism, anti-communism and religious bigotry aimed at America’s first Catholic president – some feared that Kennedy was being controlled by the pope. In the nine months before his Texas swing, he received more than 400 death threats nationwide. Kennedy’s civil rights bill, introduced in 1963, was unpopular in the south. In the 1960 presidential election, Dallas had voted for the Republican Richard Nixon over Democrat Kennedy by the biggest margin of any major city. “‘If you didn’t believe that, you were wrong and I’m not considering your opinion or how you see things.’ It’s the same sort of condition that is now prevalent in the country and it’s frightening.” “The political climate now is like the closed-minded climate that was in Dallas at the time of the assassination where people believe what they believe,” said Carolyn Barta, 84, a veteran journalist born and raised in Dallas. A 24-hour news cycle gun violence casual accusations of treason rightwing extremism and Confederate flags conspiracy theories and distrust of authority – all are part of the story of the Kennedy assassination and, perhaps more than when the 40th or 50th anniversaries were commemorated, all are newly resonant today.

Silent sniper